


I slept on my back

by duesternis



Series: after all [1]
Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Breakfast, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Kissing, M/M, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, some emotional nonsense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-13
Updated: 2020-10-13
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:33:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26988286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/duesternis/pseuds/duesternis
Summary: Tom laughed, perched on the edge of the mattress and put his hand on John’s shoulder again.“Now, now, John! No need to groan. If I’d known a simple note would have you dashing like that, I’d have sent it sooner.”
Relationships: Thomas Hartnell/Lt John Irving
Series: after all [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1969702
Comments: 8
Kudos: 27





	I slept on my back

**Author's Note:**

> title from "no shade in the shadow of the cross" by sufjan stevens

John stirred to wakefulness, a warm hand on his shoulder, and a diffuse light had him squint his eyes.  
For a long moment he knew not where he was other than that he was in a warm bed.

Then: “Good Morning, Lieutenant Irving”, spoken softly and with a distinct drawl.  
John squinted through the light cutting into his eyes and swallowed.  
“Tom.”  
Tom grinned at him and John sat up in the bed that was decidedly not his own.  
The room wasn’t his either.  
The window on the wrong side, the furnishings very wrong.  
He blinked, yawned, and Tom pressed a glass of water into his hand.  
“Drink something, you must feel horrid.”

John mumbled an affirmative and drained the glass.  
Slowly he looked around the room and smiled. He had never seen a boarding room that looked so much like a boarding room.  
The sparse furnishing, the creaky floorboards, the ramshackle door.  
Tom’s navy jacket hung on a peg or nail by the door and John recognized his own coat hanging next to it.  
With a start he remembered the frantic train ride, the half-mad dash through the streets, the relieved collapse into Tom’s arms.  
He peered at his valise, thrown by his boots and groaned, head in his hands.  
It was half stuffed with dirty clothes, maybe one clean shirt and a fresh pair of socks in the mess.  
Maybe.

Tom laughed, perched on the edge of the mattress and put his hand on John’s shoulder again.  
“Now, now, John! No need to groan. If I’d known a simple note would have you dashing like that, I’d have sent it sooner.”  
John groaned again, only now remembering the little postcard that had waited for him on his desk at home _“J, am in Greenhithe, need to see you at earliest convenience – T.H.”_  
Remembering the shock, the fear that something had happened to Tom and then the mad race to the station, to the ticket shop and then the endless hours on the train, nothing to do but pray and worry over the card in his hand.  
“I made a fool of myself,” he mumbled into his hands and Tom laughed again, stroking John’s sleep-mussed hair.  
“Gave me a fright, what, how you came storming at me, shouting as if you’d thought me dead.”  
“I thought something happened!”  
John dropped his hands, looked Tom straight in the eye and was met with an understanding so deep he shivered.  
For a moment they were both quiet.

Then John sniffed.  
“Maybe next time, Mr Hartnell” – he pulled himself into as dignified a pose as he could manage with uncombed hair and a nightshirt on – “Do say you are alright in your notes. Or maybe write something less cryptic.”  
Tom grinned and leaned in, pressing a soft, raspy kiss to John’s unkempt beard. “Yes, sir, sorry, sir, won’t happen again, sir.”  
John looked down at his scarred hands, cheeks flushed a horrible, horrible red.  
Tom got up from his perch and stretched through a yawn.  
“Breakfast, John? I got some fresh bread while you slept.” Tom pointed at his little table by the window and finally John understood the diffuse, soft light.  
The window was, in lieu of real curtains, covered with a length of cheap linen. It was woven unevenly and thus didn’t filter the sunlight neatly into the room.  
“Can I borrow your soap first?”

Tom grinned and nodded, pointing at his wash basin by his chest of drawers. The looking glass was familiar and John fingered the broken corner as he stood by it.  
“I lost mine in the Arctic, somewhere,” he said conversationally and pulled the nightshirt off, standing in Tom Hartnell’s room in naught but his smalls.  
It made John feel something wild and hungry deep in his chest.  
He splashed cold water on his face, eyed himself in the small looking glass.  
His hair and beard were out of control and with a sigh he scrubbed soap on his face and dragged a wet comb through his hair, until it looked almost as neat as he favoured it.  
Tom handed him his razor, obviously having routed through John’s valise.  
“You’re horrible at packing a bag. Why do they let you be a Lieutenant again?”  
John blinked water out of his eye and threw Tom a stern glare, making him laugh. It was always good when Tom laughed.  
It warmed John through and through.

“Tom, I do hope you are aware of the fact that I’d only just come home from the West Indies when I read your note and the Maid had already started to unpack.”  
“Well, you’ve got a tan, that’s for sure.” Tom did something by the table that John couldn’t see in the looking glass.  
He shaved his cheeks and neck, combed his beard and washed his face, under his arms and his chest. There was a bruise sucked right under his collarbone and John blushed, thumb ghosting over it.  
Tom had pressed him quite firmly into the mattress last night and kissed him from here to kingdom come.  
John didn’t recall that particular spot being kissed, though.

After washing, he knelt by his bag and tried to sort things into two piles: still wearable and laundry.  
The laundry-pile was clearly the bigger on.  
“Well, that’s not good,” John said softly and sighed.  
Tom chuckled.  
“If you need something you can borrow it from me. Come eat something. I bet you haven’t eaten in a day.”  
“Went longer with less,” was the quick answer and John winced when Tom went very still.  
“Come and eat, please.”  
“Let me dress quickly.”  
“I don’t mind, John.”  
“Tom, but I mind. A moment.”  
He smiled at Tom, apologetic, and dressed as neatly as he could with his haphazard packing.  
Uniform pants, a semi-fresh shirt that was horribly wrinkled and fresh socks. He let his braces hang and Tom sighed when John joined him at the table.  
Tom sat on an upturned milk crate, leaving John the small stool.  
He leaned over the table before sitting down, kissing Tom’s cheek.

“You should be in your shirtsleeves much more often, John. Makes you look very dashing.”  
“Uncivilised is the word you want.”  
Tom grinned and spread jam on his slice of bread. John followed suit.  
It was a good breakfast. Fresh bread, cherry jam and milk.  
And John was ravenous. Three slices of bread in and Tom cut him another one, thicker than the rest.  
“Eat up, John! Can’t have you showing your bones to all the ladies.”  
John snorted a laugh, kicking Tom lightly under the table. “No lady has ever seen my bones, Tom, don’t be ridiculous.”  
He took the slice of bread nevertheless and a second glass of milk too.  
Their feet tangled under the table and John willed his heart to beat evenly.  
There was really no cause for concern or nerves.

After breakfast John helped Tom tidy the dishes away, helped him straighten the sheets on the bed and then they stood side by side at the foot of the narrow bed.  
It was hard to imagine that two grown men had slept in it together that night.  
John reached for Tom’s wrist. Curled his fingers around it.  
Tom looked at him and they turned slowly, standing chest to chest.  
When they breathed their bellies touched.  
Slowly Tom lifted his left hand and slipped it into the open collar of John’s shirt. He put his palm flat over the two knife-scars on John’s chest.  
John raised his right hand and pulled Tom’s shirt out of his trousers, sliding a hand over Tom’s back. He couldn’t cover the scars on his back with one hand, but he knew the worst of it and touched that.  
They leaned in, foreheads resting together.

“I’m glad.”  
“For what?”  
“Having gone with the bastard and taking the lashing. For your luck, or God watching over you, or whatever it was that made him stop killing you.”  
John inhaled shakily, Tom’s hand warm and insistent on his chest, over his heart.  
“I’m glad too.”  
Tom smiled, tilted his head and their noses slid along each other.  
John couldn’t breathe, heart hammering against Tom’s palm.  
Their lips met and it was soft and warm and perfect.

Unbidden two words came to John and he smiled against Tom’s mouth.  
Tom leaned back, thumb smoothing over John’s breastbone, touching against the cross that lay there.  
“What has you grinning like that?”  
“Remember what they wrote on the first note at Victory Point?”  
“You mean Gore, God rest his soul?”  
John nodded, grin still firmly in place. Tom shook his head.  
“We weren’t told what they wrote down on it.”  
“Rather ironic, considering all that happened later, but they wrote _All well._ ”

Tom laughed and John’s grin broadened.  
For as long as Tom laughed they held each other and John firmly believed that now, after all had passed, that Graham Gore’s words came finally true.

All well.  
All well.  
All well.


End file.
